Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin: Haughty Spirits, Bearing for the Dead, and the Problem of History

American Communal Societies Quarterly Volume 3 Number 4 Pages 173-186 October 2009 Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin: Haughty Spirits, Bearing for the Dead, and the Problem of History Jane F. Crosthwaite Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq Part of the American Studies Commons This work is made available by Hamilton College for educational and research purposes under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. For more information, visit http://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/about.html or contact [email protected]. Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin: Haughty Spirits, Bearing for the Dead, and the Problem of History Cover Page Footnote Earlier versions of this paper were delivered at the American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, Texas, Women and Religion session in 2004 and at the Shaker Seminar at Canterbury, New Hampshire, in July 2009. This articles and features is available in American Communal Societies Quarterly: https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq/vol3/iss4/6 Crosthwaite: Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin: Haughty Spirits, Bearing for the Dead, and the Problem of History1 By Jane F. Crosthwaite Among the pleasures and puzzles of the Era of Manifestations are the many messages that Shaker instruments received from personages long dead. The responsibility and perhaps temptation of the scholar is to decode these messages, to analyze the intention of the instrument, the value of the message, and the utility of the experience for the larger Shaker enterprise. I have chosen two messages to examine; although they are rather dissimilar — one being a life story from Mary Magdalene and the other a confession from John Calvin — they do have several features in common. They exemplify the range of messages recorded by Shaker scribes who preserved dispatches from spirits such as early Shaker leaders, biblical prophets, world leaders, and unnamed Native Americans. And these two, like a number of other messages, are very full accounts so that one can sink one’s teeth into the stories that were saved and thus explore ramifications that may appeal to us today. Let me begin by stating my conclusion about both accounts: I think the Shakers missed important opportunities with each message. It is as if each instrument began with a plummy insight that could have important theological and social implications, but then failed in knowledge, imagination, or opportunity to consolidate the vision. Certainly, during the Era, there were a raft of messages, and any single one would be easily lost in the jumble of trances and notebooks, hardly visible to the most learned of Shaker leaders as they tried to control the many songs, messages, and enactments. Still, these words from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin could have furthered the Believers’ understanding of their place in religious history, could have strengthened their internal theological acumen, and could have opened a door to contemporary social reforms. To venture, now, on an excavation 170 years after the original messages were received is to see some weaknesses of the Era of Manifestations — to see its potential for community renewal and, alas, its failure to understand 173 Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2009 1 American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 [2009] that potential. Spiritual manifestations could not overcome the limitations in education, historical knowledge, and religious leadership the Shakers were suffering by the middle of the nineteenth century. Manifestations from the Era of Manifestations rested on a number of Shaker assumptions and practices. The validity of the Shaker message — and the specific teachings of Ann Lee — depended on a belief in continuing revelation, belief that new Christian teachings were possible and, indeed, present. The second appearing of the Christ — the millennial dawning of a new age — meant that Mother Ann’s teachings, especially about celibacy, opened doors between heaven and earth. Not only had the age of revelation not ended with the close of the biblical canon, but new messages and other interactions with heaven were possible. Mother Ann herself was said, in the 1816 Testimonies, to have communicated with the dead — to be bearing for the dead. A whole chapter in this account of her life and ministry is devoted to this topic. Mother Ann was responding to the anxieties of her new recruits over the missed opportunities of their deceased loved ones who had not lived to receive the new messages. Mother Ann said she saw those spirits in heaven, knew they could and would be saved, and she consoled her new flock that new revelations would not handicap the salvation of the deceased — nor would the deceased impede the new mode of faith. As the introduction to Chapter XXVII states: Mother Ann and the Elders with her, uniformly taught the doctrine of a free offer to all souls, whether in this world, or in the world of spirits. That none could be deprived of the offer of salvation because they had left the world before Christ made his appearance; or because they had lived in some remote part of the earth, where the sound of the gospel had never reached their ears. Their labors in the work of regeneration were not confined to this world, but extended to the world of spirits, and their travail and sufferings for the salvation of departed souls were often distressing beyond description.2 The idea of the open door relied on biblical passages, many identified by Daniel Patterson in his book, The Shaker Spiritual.3 An extended, and modified, version of bearing with the dead became operative in the Era of Manifestations as the instruments traveled back and forth between heaven and earth, conversing with spirits in heaven, and learning that those spirits not only had messages, information, and instructions to convey to the living, but were themselves capable of changing, growing, and finding the new Shaker truth in heaven. 174 https://digitalcommons.hamilton.edu/acsq/vol3/iss4/6 2 Crosthwaite: Shaker Messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin Such were the cases of Mary Magdalene and of John Calvin, each of whom, it seems, had seen new light, had met with Mother Ann in heaven, and had special new information for Shaker Believers and, perhaps, for the rest of the world as well. The messages from Mary Magdalene and John Calvin have led me, as a Shaker historian particularly interested in theological permutations, into increasingly fascinating pathways, many of which I wish the Shakers themselves had followed more closely. Mary Magdalene told her story to a Believer at the Shirley Shaker community in 1841; I am assuming, but cannot verify, that it was a woman who received and/or recorded the story.4 The transcribed story covers about ten typewritten pages and aims to tell the story of the Magdalene’s life, that is, to flesh out what is, in fact, a rather sketchy biblical story. The instrument betrays a thorough knowledge of the biblical story when she identifies Mary Magdalene as the woman cleared of seven devils,5 as a possible companion who anointed Jesus,6 as one of the women at the cross,7 and then as the first person to report that the tomb was empty.8 The Shirley account also relies on two non-canonical traditions, albeit to a lesser degree. The first is the assumption that Mary of Magdala was also the woman taken in adultery who was saved by Jesus.9 It is useful to note that, in spite of generations of tradition, this woman was not necessarily a prostitute! The bible does not name that woman, although Christian tradition has done so. Her identity as Mary Magdalene was eventually made firm by the teaching of Pope Gregory I, the Great (540- 604) in 591,10 and to a lesser extent it has also lived in the many artistic renderings of Mary with long, usually red hair by which she is seen both as a loose woman and as using her hair to dry the feet of Jesus. The Shirley account does not name her as a prostitute, but it does have Mary referring to her “extreme wickedness” and, more indirectly, to her lust.11 It is, in fact, however, just on this first “prostitution” point that I think Mary’s story fails to be adequately used by either the recording instrument or the Shaker family. And this for two reasons: (1) here was a theologically opportune moment to argue against lust and for celibacy with the aid of Mary’s confession, and (2) here was a chance to work with a number of impressive local reform movements currently afoot which were designed to help both prostitutes and other unprotected women (and children) in need. Rejecting earlier Shaker evangelical fervor for denouncing lust and carnality, the Shirley account gives a genteel spin to the prostitution issue, having Mary speak in euphemisms and with a certain literate air: “Many 175 Published by Hamilton Digital Commons, 2009 3 American Communal Societies Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 [2009] have wondered what my extreme wickedness could be that so many devils could have taken possession of my heart. My Blessed Mother has requested me to write this my history to enlighten the understanding of her children respecting many things.” Mary says that as a child she was indulged by superficially committed Jewish parents and that she grew to be proud and haughty and lacking in self control. She became, she says, overbearing, selfish, dressed in gaudy attire, and was “drawn to the great whirlpool of evil as a ship at sea is often drawn into unfathomable depths of a great maelstrom, where it meets [with] certain destruction.” Mary reports that she was first astonished by the message of John (“truly an object of admiration for his countenance was verry [sic] beautiful to look upon … most melodious accents … power of conviction”), then she thought she might try to entice Jesus who she understood forbade people to marry.

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